Super Sensitive

If I were forced to give up one of the five senses, I would probably give up sight. For one thing, I already have horrible eyesight, so I’m already halfway there. And I’m not even twenty-five.

It was really hard for me to choose which sense to give up. I immediately nixed hearing from the choices, obviously because of music. I guess I could have given it up, and taught myself to appreciate it through just feeling it through a speaker or the floor or whatever else, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I don’t know if it’s laziness or what, but I couldn’t willingly give up my hearing. (Even though that sense of mine already kind of sucks, too.)

I could give up sight. Would I hate it? Yeah. But I’d deal with it.

Even though that also kind of means giving up my dream to go to Europe.

I’m not saying it’d be worth it, though. It would just be a loss. And a lot of people in the world are blind, and you don’t see them giving up their dreams.

For some reason, I also really couldn’t give up my sense of smell. It would be nice to not have to smell things that make me want to vomit, like the fake pine cones designed to smell like cinnamon, or the sewage system, but I can’t give up the ability to get a whiff of things that smell great. You know, like lemons, and my mom’s cooking.

If losing my eyesight meant that I could gain super-sensitivity in another sense, I would probably want to have a hypersensitivity to touching. On the one hand, I feel like that is the most rational sense to go with—especially since you’d need to find your way around somehow—but I think I’d still choose it either way. To really learn where things are and how they feel is really interesting.

In my opinion, it’s almost mind boggling to watch those videos of blindfolded children feeling women’s faces and hair to figure out which is their mother. Or even the videos of blind people explaining what their loved ones look like to an artist, to get an illustration or clay model of them, and see how accurate they are. That stuff is really cool! I could only imagine what kind of experience that’d be like.

Clearly, I couldn’t give up the sense of taste. Have you met me? I love food. If I couldn’t taste food anymore, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it as much as I do. So, thanks, but no thanks.

I feel like if this were to actually happen, I would need a friend who’s a writer or poet to go with me on trips to places like Europe. I would need a really good description of what everything looks like.

I like details, so I would need to bring a friend who could appreciate those kinds of things to tell me what the Northern Lights, the Eiffel Tower, and St. Basil’s Cathedral look like. I’d want someone to set the scene for me in Kensington Garden and on the Cliffs of Moher. Otherwise, I’d live an average, boring life.

And I just can’t have that.

Prompt: If you were forced to give up one sense, but gain super-sensitivity in another, which senses would you choose?